


Keepsake

by Teravolt



Category: Voltron - Fandom, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff, I REGRET NOTHING, Keith has a stuffed hippo, Lance is a sad bean, M/M, Mild Angst, Oneshot, Only rated Teen for super mild language tbh, This is literally just self-indulgent hurt/comfort crap, klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 12:45:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11898015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teravolt/pseuds/Teravolt
Summary: “Is that a hippo?”When Keith follows Lance's gaze to the bed, he feels his heart sink into the deepest pit of his stomach. He’s been determined to hide the ratty stuffed animal from the others since the day their mission began. Up until now, he’s been successful.





	Keepsake

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by  Naninnai-art's adorable piece.  I really couldn't help myself.

There are very few simple human comforts in the unending void of space.

  
It’s an unfortunate reality that each paladin has been doing their best to cope with in their own way. Pidge throws herself into searching for her brother, scouring distant corners of the universe on holographic maps and falling asleep in front of her equipment.

  
Hunk takes to the kitchen. Even if there’s nothing to make, even if the ingredients and equipment are too unfamiliar to him for anything to turn out, going through the motions of a familiar hobby seems to put him at ease in a way that nothing else can.

  
Shiro’s time is best spent keeping busy. An otherwise-occupied mind can’t focus on past traumas, on lingering shreds of nightmares that cloud his head like cobwebs in the unswept corners of an abandoned mine.

  
Lance makes jokes, does his best to make light of their situation for the sake of his friends. But Keith has seen him sitting alone in one of the more secluded rooms of the castle, gazing into the nothingness around them through reinforced acrylic windows. On those days there is always a hollow, lost look in Lance’s eyes, and Keith can’t help but wonder if he’s staring into the unforgiving emptiness of their surroundings, or that of his own heart. He remembers, vividly, the day he walked in on Lance sitting with his back to Keith, knees drawn to his chest, wearing one of the headsets from their early training sessions. He remembers an image, a projection. A large family full of smiling faces. He remembers soft, broken sobs.

  
Sometimes, coping isn’t an easy thing to do. That’s why it’s called coping.

  
Keith considers himself lucky. In addition to being able to vent his frustrations through sparring sessions with the castle’s simulations, he has something that he often feels guilty for keeping with him, something that the others don’t. Two somethings, really.

  
The first is his knife, the luxite blade that he’s carried with him for as long as he can remember. It makes him feel safe, tucked beneath his pillow as he sleeps. Even as shrouded in mystery as it is, even though it raises more questions than it answers, it connects Keith to a life before this one, ties him to foggy memories of when things weren’t quite as difficult. When he grips the hilt of that knife, he strengthens his hold on his goals, his past and his future, and his resolve to tie them together as best he can.

  
As undeniably important as the knife is, however, it cannot do everything. Its blade bites into his enemies, those that wish to harm Keith and those he holds most dear. It is as infallible as his lion, as much a companion as it is a weapon. But even from its place beneath his pillow, it cannot sever the hold that Keith’s nightmares have on him, cannot cut the demons away or ward off the unpleasant thoughts that buzz around in his head like a swarm of flies. Keith has something else for that. Something that he clutches to his chest at night, close to his heart where it’s belonged for years, perhaps even before the knife.

  
Lance finds it one day, only half-buried beneath the covers of Keith’s bed. It’s tattered and worn, stained but recognizable.

  
“Is that a hippo?”

  
When Keith follows Lance’s gaze to the bed, he feels his heart sink into the deepest pit of his stomach. He’s been determined to hide the ratty stuffed animal from the others since the day their mission began. Up until now, he’s been successful, hiding it beneath his covers or jamming it into the narrow space between his cot and the wall to obscure it from view. The only time the hippo ever sees the light of day is when Keith tucks in for the night, taking comfort in pulling it from its hiding place.

  
While Keith flounders for a response, Lance crosses the room and picks the well-loved toy up by its foreleg, examining it with an almost uncharacteristic amount of care.

  
“A hippo,” he confirms, answering his own question. He looks to Keith for an explanation, eyebrows raised almost to his hairline. “Why do you have a—” He’s cut off by Keith lurching forward and snatching the stuffed hippo out of his hands. Lance lets go quickly for fear that the time-weakened fabric might tear at the first sign of stress. “Dude, chill, it was only a question.”

  
“It’s none of your damn business,” Keith grits out, embarrassment taking the form of a blush sitting high on his cheekbones. It wouldn’t be so bad if Pidge or Shiro had found it, but Lance? Of course it had to be Lance.

  
There’s a heartbeat of silence, so prominent that one could very possibly hear a pin drop, but Keith is pretty sure he can hear Lance judging him instead.

  
“Okaaay…” Lance draws the word out as though he’s thinking about which ones will follow it. His eyes are still locked on the hippo, the way Keith holds it against him rather than down at his side. He gathers from that alone that the old toy must be important. “Okay,” he repeats. “So it doesn’t matter why.”

  
That startles Keith, who, for a split second, is grateful for Lance’s apparent willingness to drop it then and there. Gratitude that evaporates the literal instant Lance opens his mouth again.

  
“Does it have a name?”

  
Keith’s eyes narrow. If the only thing in his hand in that moment wasn’t so incredibly dear to him, he’d have thrown it at Lance already. He hesitates, scrutinizing Lance’s facial expression for any sign of ill intent, any sign that Lance would love to take Keith’s answer and run with it, making a field day of his embarrassment. For once, however, there is none.

  
“Henry.” It comes out as a sigh.

  
“Henry the Hippo,” Lance concludes, and the corners of his mouth twitch upward into the beginnings of a grin.

  
“Lance, I swear to _god_ if you tell _anyone_ —” Keith’s fists clench threateningly and his knuckles go white with the force of it. Lance remains relatively unfazed.

  
“I’m not going to tell anybody,” he insists, tone somewhere between admonishing and offended that Keith would even assume him capable of such disloyalty. “I’m not that big of an asshole, you know.”

  
“Debatable,” Keith fires back, though his death grip on the poor, ragged hippo loosens minutely.

  
Another moment of silence passes, unbroken, between them. Neither is sure of what to say, though it’s clear to Keith that Lance has absolutely no intention of leaving until his curiosity has been satisfied.

  
“It’s like the knife,” he relents eventually. Lance’s eyes dart to Keith’s bed, to the pillow he knows hides the galra blade, and back again. “I just sort of… have it. It’s been with me as long as I can remember. I didn’t name it, either. The…” He trails off, brow furrowing with uncertainty. “The person who gave it to me did.”

  
Lance looks doubtful, one brow raised higher than its twin in question. “The person who gave it to you,” he echoes. “And that would be?”

  
It’s a fairly straightforward question, one that should have an equally straightforward answer. But it’s met with silence—at least, at first. When Keith speaks again, it’s with even less certainty than before. “My mom… I think.”

  
“You _think?_ ” Lance regards him with a dumbfounded look. “Keith, buddy, I’m probably not the first person to ever tell you this, but when someone carries around a decade-old stuffed animal, they usually know who gave it to them. That’s kind of important.”

  
Lance probably expects his words to get a rise out of Keith, but they don’t. Keith is busy staring at the faded purple fabric of the hippo and the worn seams holding it together.

  
“I don’t really remember her,” Keith says, so quietly that Lance takes an unconscious step forward in order to hear him better. “My mom, I mean. I don’t remember her face.” Frustration tugs at him, frustration that he attempts to soothe by running his thumb over threadbare fabric. “I dream about her a lot, but I can never see what she looks like. I recognize her voice, though, and…” A pause. There’s a melancholic look in Keith’s eyes. “This guy. He smells like home. Like her. Or at least how I’ve always imagined she would.”

  
Lance is quiet, the only sound being the awkward scuffing of his sneaker against the tile floor. His other shoe might as well be empty considering how impossibly far he’s shoved his foot into his mouth.

  
“Hey, look,” Lance starts, apologetic. “I didn’t mean to, like, you know—” His words are disjointed, flustered. Keith doesn’t blame him; Lance has never seen him this vulnerable, and he figures it must be jarring. He’d like to avoid making a habit of it.

  
“It’s not a big deal,” Keith murmurs. “Just don’t go opening your mouth to the others and there won’t really be a problem.” He says it with finality as he brushes past Lance to place Henry the Hippo on his bed. He tosses his covers over it, and Henry is so floppy with age that it doesn’t really hold any noticeable form beneath them, flattening out under their minuscule weight.

  
Behind him, Lance rocks anxiously on his feet, his face the very picture of discomfort. Like he wants to say something but doesn’t know how without causing more damage than he believes he already has.

  
“Dude, it’s fine,” Keith tells him as he turns back to face Lance. “Like I said, it’s not really a big deal. I just don’t want the others thinking that I’m weak, you know? That I depend on a stupid hippo as a security blanket—”

  
“It’s not stupid!” Lance yelps, and the force with which he says it appears to startle him as much as it does Keith. Lance’s brows knit together in the center of his forehead to accent the downward turn of his lips. “It’s… not. So don’t say that.”

  
Keith must be looking at him as though he’s grown a second head, because he continues without any sort of verbal prompt, speaking quickly like he’s embarrassed by his own words. “If it gives you peace of mind and reminds you of your family, then it isn’t stupid. It’s actually really sweet. I bet your mom would be really happy that you have it with you all the way out here and that you think of her whenever you hold it and…” Before Keith has time to register what’s happening, Lance has tears trickling down his cheeks. “It’s not stupid,” he insists again, scrubbing weakly at his face with the dirty sleeve of his jacket. “It’s not…”

  
“Lance,” Keith tries, suddenly at an absolute loss for words. He feels guilty—ashamed, even—for taking the hippo for granted. Lance doesn’t have anything like Henry to keep him company at night, to chase away his nightmares. Nightmares that Keith is sure plague Lance’s sleep just as often as they do that of the rest of the paladins, if not more so. In the fight against the army of demons—loneliness, doubt, regret and fear—that make themselves most known in the quiet hours of the night, Lance, perhaps the most vulnerable of all of them, is completely unarmed.

  
Chewing regretfully at the inside of his cheek, Keith takes the few steps that separate him from Lance and rests a hand on his shoulder. “Okay,” he murmurs, giving Lance what he hopes is a comforting or at least somewhat reassuring squeeze. “Okay. You’re right and I’m sorry.” He pauses as Lance sniffs and tries to reign in his emotions. “I guess I just didn’t think anyone else would understand, you know? But now that I think about it, that’s kind of a really selfish way of thinking. Everyone here has someone that they miss, all the way out here. A lot of someones,” he amends, suddenly thinking back to that fleeting moment in the back of the castle, the projection of Lance’s huge family on a holographic screen. Parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters. Lance has a lot of someones to miss.

  
Keith doesn’t really make the conscious decision to turn back around. It’s like his body moves on its own, set on the action of tossing the sheets back and retrieving Henry before his brain has the chance to tell him to. Lance stares after him, confusion creasing his forehead, until Keith presents him with the hippo.

  
“Take it tonight,” Keith murmurs, pushing Henry toward Lance when Lance fails to reach for it. “It’ll help you sleep. Trust me.”

  
Lance makes no move to claim the stuffed animal, and it’s his turn to look at Keith as though he’s lost his mind. “He belongs to you,” he points out lamely, wondering if perhaps Keith has forgotten that fact. “Why would you give him to me?”

  
Keith sighs inwardly. “Look—just—just take him, okay? I know you’re homesick, Lance. Everybody does. You’re always thinking of the team and trying to keep our morale up, but it’s not like we can’t tell that you’re hurting, too. You have a lot waiting for you back on earth and nothing here with you to lift your spirits or remind you of home. It’s gotta be hard.” He thrusts the hippo out toward Lance again, and this time Lance takes it, albeit hesitantly. “I know it’s not exactly the same thing,” Keith murmurs. “It doesn’t have any sort of deep or personal meaning to you. It’s just a stuffed animal. But it does do a good job of keeping the shitty dreams away, so maybe… Maybe it’ll still help.”

  
Lance, at a loss for words, hugs Henry to his chest. The hippo is soft from years of love. “Thank you,” he says, his voice just barely above a whisper. Any louder and he fears it might break. “I’ll take good care of him.”

  
For the first time since this emotional roller-coaster of a conversation began, Keith feels a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. Impulsively, he steps forward and hugs Lance. It’s a bro-hug if anything—brief and strong, complete with an exaggerated back pat and completely out of place in the moment. Mostly because Keith is worried about the implications that anything more tender could have. Implications that he isn’t quite ready to face just yet. “I know you will.”

  
When Keith steps back and drops his arms, Lance is smiling too, absently smoothing his thumb along one of Henry’s seams. It’s only a few seconds, however, before that smile falters. Lance bites his lip. “Are you going to be okay without him for a night?” he asks worriedly, and the concern on his face makes Keith chuckle.

  
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll be fine. Anyhow, my mom would be really happy if she knew that Henry was helping someone else the way he helps me. I think I’ll sleep fine knowing that.”

  
There’s a beat of silence while Lance digests those words. And then it’s his turn to go in for a hug. It’s just as brief as the first, awkward and clumsy as teenage boys tend to be. Still, the smile is back, and like kindling tossed onto burning embers, it causes Keith’s own to flare up as well.

  
They go their separate ways after that, Lance with Henry the Hippo tucked securely under his jacket to make smuggling him to Lance’s room less of a challenge. When Lance tucks in for bed that night, his room doesn’t seem quite so lonely, his bed not quite as empty. As he closes his eyes and draws Henry to his chest, the hippo’s head tucked up under his chin, he feels just an inkling of that soft, familial warmth that he’s missed so dearly. And though he can’t say for certain when it comes to Keith’s mother, one thing Lance does know without a doubt is that Henry the Hippo definitely smells like Keith.


End file.
